I wanted to write a show about an estate that wasn't sad or morbid, like a lot of shows portray working class life to be.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to portray working class life in a more positive and uplifting manner.
Michaela Coel highlights the importance of representation in storytelling, particularly in how working class life is often depicted in media. She aims to create a show that reflects the resilience and vibrancy of such lives rather than focusing on the sadness or morbid aspects typically associated with them, thereby challenging stereotypes and inviting a more nuanced understanding of different social realities.
In practice
This quote can inspire filmmakers to focus on uplifting narratives during a panel discussion.
In Britain, we need to start presenting the option of being a writer in front of black women. We need to present the idea of being a writer into poorer communities because the majority of black people in this country are working class. We need to let working-class people know that their voices are important.
I don't believe in comedy as a TV genre - I think there's drama that is funny. Because beyond the laughs, there has to be cost, and there has to be heart.
When you've got African parents, you go to uni, do finance, and go into accounting. But I'm not good with systems. I dropped out in my final year of college to become a Christian poet. Then went back to do my A-levels and went to uni in Birmingham to do political science and theology. I lasted 12 weeks.
Growing up on our estate, we were all different colours, but we were all really poor. I never really realised that black was a problem for some people.
We live in a world where if you're white, an upper-class male of extreme privilege, and able-bodied, and you're nothing that takes you away from that norm, then you're going to have - then the world will not assign you problems because of what you are. That is actually the world we live in.
Where I grew up, in Aldgate, east London, one of the poorest boroughs in the country, I saw lots that was real - the bankers with their briefcases, the man next door with five wives, the illegal immigrants in Flat 5. I'm from a world you rarely see on screen, and I want to show it off.
What a great poem teaches you - and it's not intellectual at all - is the resonance in the language that's heard there. This goes back to the very origins of poetry and to the very origins of language.
I wouldn't want everybody to be an art or literature major, but the world would be poorer - figuratively, anyway - if we were all coding software or running companies. We also want musicians to awaken our souls, writers to lead us into fictional lands, and philosophers to help us exercise our minds and engage the world.
In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet
It's a maddening thing in itself to look at an old poem of yours. To translate it is even more maddening.
The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
I think literary theory satisfied a deep love I have for big, encompassing narratives about the world and how it works - which are usually, in the end, more creative visions unto themselves than illuminating explanations.
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